Customer engagement refers to the activities involved in building an emotional connection between customers and the brand. Deploying customer engagement strategies will help companies to build a customer base that promotes the brand and demonstrates more brand loyalty. High-quality customer experience is an essential ingredient of every customer engagement strategies.
Benefits of customer engagement model
Here are some of the key benefits that companies can gain by devising a customer engagement model for their business:
Improved customer retention
Engaged customers will continue to build long-term relationships with the brand. In fact, research shows that businesses that focus on customer engagement strategies are more likely to make customers spend more on their products and services and convert them into loyalists of the brand.
Shorter sales cycle
One of the key benefits of a customer engagement model is that it helps businesses attain a shorter sales cycle. In this system, customers and other prospects can utilize a customer engagement portal to instantly access the information they need irrespective of the stage of the buying process that they are on.
Boosts marketing efficiency
Modern marketing is all about engaging the customers. In several cases, marketing efforts go down the drain as they fail to capture customers’ interest. With effective customer engagement strategies in place, marketing efforts are expected to garner better results as they are more likely to capture the customers’ attention.
Brand differentiation
With the increasing number of competition in the market, companies are constantly expected to bring something new to the table. Utilizing opportunities that other players in the market would have missed, such as formulating customer engagement strategies ensure that brands effectively differentiate themselves and gain a greater chunk of the market share.
Best customer engagement strategies for businesses
If you are a marketer on the lookout for some of the best-in-class customer engagement strategies for your business, here’s what you need to do:
‘Humanize’ your brand
Customers tend to favor brands that understand their needs and they can relate to. This is easier for fun consumer brands when compared to more conservative brands or B2B companies. One of the ways for companies to bring the ‘human element’ into their brand is identifying a personality within the organization who is passionate about the brand and is a natural communicator. This person can be encouraged to become a thought leader and give them a voice to humanize the brand and engage the audience.
Video tutorials
It often happens that many retailers do not pay much attention to after-sale services. It does not only involve repairs and maintenance but educating the customers about the brand and the product is also an integral element of after sale services. And one of the best customer engagement strategies for businesses to use at this stage is the use of video tutorials. It is a way to compete for your customer’s attention. Videos are visually stimulating and convey the messages faster.
Use social media as a tool
Today, social media is one of the most effective tools for businesses to engage with their customers. Brands can promote customer engagement on social media by encouraging customers to share their feedback, reply to their queries, and cater to their grievances on social media in a quick fashion. This promotes the overall goodwill of the brand.